AI The mist clung to the low-hanging branches of the oaks in Richmond Park, turning the twilight world into a watercolor painting of grey and green. Aurora Carter pulled her jacket tighter around herself, the damp English chill seeping through the fabric. At her hip, the weight of the Fae-forged blade was a constant, cold reminder of why she was here.
Nyx drifted beside her, their incorporeal form barely disturbing the heavy air. The Shade looked less like a person and more like a tear in the fabric of the evening, a silhouette of living shadow with faint violet eyes that seemed to hover independently of their face.
"It is close," Nyx whispered, their voice sounding like dry leaves skittering over pavement.
Ahead of them, Isolde Varga moved with a silence that made Rory’s skin prickle. The Half-Fae didn’t walk so much as glide, her silver hair trailing behind her like a bridal veil, despite the lack of wind. Rory glanced down at the ground as they stepped off the beaten path. Where her own boots sank into the mud and Nyx’s shadow-feet left no impression, Isolde left absolutely nothing. No footprints, no displaced pebbles. It was as if the earth itself refused to acknowledge her weight .
"Keep your mind sharp, child of the law," Isolde murmured, her pale lavender eyes fixed on a copse of trees that looked no different from the thousand others surrounding them. "The Grove does not suffer the closed mind."
Rory resisted the urge to snap back that she wasn't a lawyer anymore. Instead, she touched the Heartstone pendant hanging at her throat. The deep crimson gemstone, usually dormant, pulsed with a faint, rhythmic warmth. It wasn't the burning heat she’d been told to expect near a Hel portal, but a gentle, heartbeat-like thrumming.
"The Veil is thin here," Rory noted, watch ing the air between the ancient oks shimmer. It looked like heat rising off asphalt, a faint distortion that twisted the lines of the tree trunks behind it.
"Non-existent, where we go," Isolde corrected softly .
They reached the standing stones. They were jagged, weathered things, half-buried in the undergrowth, arranged in a rough circle that felt too intentional to be natural. Rory paused at the perimeter. Here, the sounds of the city—the distant hum of traffic, the bark of a dog—abruptly cut out. The silence wasn't empty; it was heavy, pressurized, like the air inside a submarine.
"Step through," Isolde said, standing in the center of the circle. She turned, her expression unreadable . "But do not wander. The flowers here are jealous of their color."
Rory took a breath and exchanged a glance with Nyx. The Shade solidified slightly , taking on a more human shape to offer a reassuring nod.
"Behind you," Nyx said.
Rory stepped over the boundary line marked by a fallen stone.
The sensation hit her physically, a sudden drop in pressure that popped her ears. The grey mist of the park vanished instantly, replaced by a world that felt oversaturated, too bright and too sharp.
She stumbled, catching herself on the trunk of a tree that felt smoother than polished glass. She looked up and froze.
They were no longer in a dreary London park. The sky above them was a tapestry of indigo and violet, devoid of clouds but filled with the slow, lazy drift of moons—or perhaps just large, glowing spores—drifting in a non-existent breeze. The light here had no source; it seemed to emanate from the very air, turning the shadows long and soft.
"The Grove," Nyx breathed, sounding awed. "I had forgotten the taste of this air."
Rory straightened, her eyes widening. The flora was alien, chaotic beauty run wild. Ferns unfurled in spirals of iridescent blue, their leaves translucent like insect wings. Flowers the size of dinner plates bloomed in clusters along the path, their petals shifting colors from deep orange to violent pink as she watch ed them. There was no grass underfoot, only a thick, spongy moss that released a cloud of glittering spores with every step she took.
"It’s incredible," Rory whispered. She knelt, brushing her fingers over a low-growing bush. The leaves didn't feel like plant matter; they felt like velvet , warm to the touch. "Is this all on Earth? Just... tucked away?"
"And elsewhere," Isolde said, appearing at Rory's elbow. "The Grove exists between. A breath held in time."
Rory stood and walked deeper into the clearing. The air smelled impossibly sweet, a heady mixture of honeysuckle, ozone, and something metallic, like copper. It made her head spin slightly . She gripped the hilt of the Fae-forged blade at her hip. The metal was freezing , a stark contrast to the warm, humid air of the Grove. The cold grounded her, anchoring her senses against the sensory overload.
As they moved deeper, the geometry of the place felt wrong. Rory looked toward the horizon—or what should have been the horizon—but the landscape simply curled upward, trees growing at angles that defied gravity. Pathways spiraled into the sky, and waterfalls flowed upward, defying physics with a graceful, terrifying indifference.
"Do not stare at the sky too long," Isolde warned, her voice echoing slightly as if she were speaking from the bottom of a well. "The eyes are the window to the soul, and here, the curtains are always drawn."
Nyx drifted toward a massive, twisting tree that sat in the center of the grove. Its bark was black as ink, its roots snaking through the ground like sleeping dragons. Nyx reached out, their hand shifting from solid shadow to mist as they brushed against the wood.
"Old," Nyx said. "Older than the stone. Older than the Veil."
Rory joined them, looking up into the canopy. The branches didn't have leaves; instead, they were draped in long, shimmering ribbons of light that chimed softly when the breeze moved. It was a sound like distant wind chimes, a melody that made her chest ache with a sudden, inexplicable nostalgia for a place she had never been.
"This is where you live?" Rory asked Isolde.
"When I am not walking your grey streets," Isolde replied. She ran a hand through a patch of wildflowers that bloomed instantly at her touch, their petals opening to reveal eyes of polished obsidian before closing again. "The Fae Courts banished me, but they could not banish me from the spaces between."
A sudden movement in the corner of Rory’s eye made her spin around, hand tightening on the blade. "Did you see that?"
"The shadows move," Nyx said calmly, though their form had tensed, becoming more solid, more warrior-like. "They are always watch ing here. This is a place of wild magic, Aurora. It does not love the human shape."
Rory squinted. The shadows under the iridescent ferns were lengthening , stretching toward her boots like spilt ink. She took a step back, the Heartstone pendant flaring with a sudden spike of heat against her skin.
"They sense the blade," Isolde said, not sounding concerned. "It is a court weapon. A piece of order in a garden of chaos."
Rory looked down at the leaf-shaped dagger. The moonsilver metal was glowing faintly, reacting to the ambient magic. "Right. Order. I'll try to keep that in mind."
She stepped carefully over a root that seemed to be breathing, expanding and contracting with a slow, rhythmic motion. The unease was settling in her stomach now, twisting with the wonder. This place was beautiful, yes, but it was also predatory. It felt like walking into the open mouth of a beast that hadn't decided whether to swallow or speak.
"Is the time difference happening now?" Rory asked. She checked her watch , but the second hand was spinning wildly, making a complete rotation every few seconds before stopping entirely, then spinning backward.
"Time is a suggestion here," Isolde said cryptically. She gestured toward a crystal-clear pool that reflected a sky full of stars, despite the twilight illumination of the grove. "Drink, if you wish to see the truth. But know that the truth often tastes like ash."
Rory looked at the water. It was perfectly still, yet the reflection showed not her face, but a version of herself surrounded by fire, holding the blade high. She flinched and looked away.
"I think I'll stick to the tap water back at the flat," Rory said dryly, though her heart was hammering against her ribs.
Nyx drifted closer to her, their shadowy form providing a strange comfort amidst the bioluminescent chaos. "This place is not for you, Aurora Carter. It is too loud."
"It's beautiful," Rory admitted, forcing herself to look at a flower that was singing a high, piercing note. "But it feels like I’m intruding."
"You are," Isolde said simply. She turned and began to walk back toward the standing stones, her silver hair leaving trails of light in the air behind her. "Come. The air grows heavy. The wild things are waking."
As if on cue, the chime in the trees shifted key. The melody deepened, slowing down. The giant flowers with the eyes turned their gaze toward Rory, unblinking. The moss beneath her feet felt less like a cushion and more like a muscle, tensing up.
Rory didn't need to be told twice. She unhooked the blade, just an inch, letting the cold silver air kiss her wrist where the small crescent scar lay. The presence of the weapon seemed to push back the encroaching flora, the ferns retracting slightly from the light of the blade.
"Let's go," Rory said, backing away slowly .
She followed Nyx and Isolde toward the distortion of the Veil. As she crossed the threshold of the standing stones, the sensory overload of the Grove—the smells, the colors, the singing air—snapped out of existence instantly.
The damp grey mist of Richmond Park rushed back in, cold and smelling of exhaust fumes and wet dogs. The silence of the Grove was replaced by the distant roar of the A205.
Rory blinked, her eyes struggling to adjust to the mundane dimness. She looked down. Her boots were muddy. On her jacket, a single petal from the Grove clung to the wool—iridescent blue, warm to the touch, and slowly dissolving into nothing but sparkling dust.
"Safe," Nyx whispered beside her, their form fading back into the shadows of the park trees.
Rory exhaled, a long, shaky breath that fogged in the cold air. She touched the Heartstone pendant; it was cool again. But the cold of the Fae blade at her hip lingered, and she knew that for the first time, she understood exactly what lay on the other side of the wall. It wasn't just magic. It was life, wild and uncaring, and she had just walked through its living room.